When we arrived on the hilly island, the sky overhead was heavily overcast, so much so that not a ray of sun broke through the clouds and Bahir didn’t need to use his powers to shelter Julie and me. We approached the doorstep of the castle. Before Arron could, I stepped forward and knocked on the heavy door.

Uma’s sister opened the door promptly. Her round face lit up with recognition. “Aha. Come in, come in.”

She swung the door wide open and allowed us all to step inside. She led us across the waiting room—now empty—and took a seat behind her desk. She opened up her ledger, and then glanced up at me. “So? Were you successful in acquiring the ingredients? I have noted down here you are due to pay a werewolf tooth, a strand of merflor, and a dragon scale.”

“First, here’s the dragon scale.” I removed it from beneath my arm and handed it to her, watching with bated breath as she examined it.

Seemingly satisfied, she nodded and placed the item in a drawer. She looked up expectantly. “And then?”

I detached the brown sack from my belt and planted it down on the counter in front her. She loosened the string wrapped tightly around the opening and gazed down into the bag. She frowned.

“What?” I asked, my jaw tensing.

She pulled out the werewolf tooth. “This seems fine and genuine,” she said, rolling the huge tooth in her palm. Her eyes flicked back up to me. “But I still need the merflor.”

My stomach dropped. “What? It’s in the bag…”

My voice trailed off as I snatched the bag from her and gazed down into it. It was empty.

How? I’d been examining the merflor just the day before yesterday.

Could it have fallen out? What happened to it?

Could it have been removed?

I spun around to face my companions. “Did one of you touch the merflor?”

Julie and Bahir looked blankly back at me. My eyes fell on Arron.

“Perhaps it fell out,” he offered, furrowing his brows.

My eyes narrowed on him. I’d kept the bag tightly shut at all times. Even when we’d visited Breccan’s cave, the sack had remained on my person and after we’d returned, the string had still been tied tightly around the opening.

Could the Hawk be trying to jeopardize my meeting with the witch?

I recalled the night before, when I’d been examining the merflor before returning it to the bag. That was the same night that Arron had approached me, handed me the vial of light blue liquid and made his “suggestion”. That had also been the night Bahir had left me and I’d leapt from the cliff—possibly the only time that I’d been separated from the sack.

I’d felt the pain in my chest as Bahir prepared to exit. I’d dropped the sack before leaping from the mountain. Arron had remained on that ledge. He could have easily removed the light merflor and left only the tooth to provide some weight to the bag—so I wouldn’t notice the merflor was missing until time ran out for our appointment.

There was no way I could prove any of this, and perhaps it was just my frustration getting the better of me, but Arron had made no secret all along that his preference was to get rid of me rather than pursue a long-winded route of trying to cure me.

I cursed beneath my breath as I turned around to face Uma’s sister again. She was tapping her fingers impatiently on the desk.

“Do you have the merflor or not?” she asked. “Because I’m afraid that without it, I can’t give you an appointment.”

“Just give me a moment, will you?” I said.

Grasping Arron by the shoulder, I pulled him across the room toward the door, Bahir and Julie following after me. I dragged him outside and, clutching his robe in my fists, pushed his back against the castle’s rough wall. My eyes bored into his. “Are you quite certain you don’t know where the merflor is?” I breathed.

He glared back at me. “Quite certain, vampire,” he said coolly. “The last I saw of the plant was when you took it out and looked at it back at our camp.”

My eyes continued to drill into his for several more moments, trying to detect a faltering in his gaze, before letting him go.

I kicked the ground, spraying pebbles all around me. Dammit.

We needed to get some more merflor. But we were now only hours away from the time of my appointment. When Aisha had gone looking for it, it had taken her hours to find. Now that she knew where it was, it shouldn’t take her too long to find again. Perhaps she could even procure it before the appointment. But we didn’t have Aisha to help us any more. We had Bahir… Unless the male jinni felt that he had recovered enough to resume his hold on me.

I turned to Bahir. “How is your strength?” I asked. “Could you inhabit me again now?”

Doubt shrouded the jinni’s strong-jawed face. “No, Benjamin,” he said, shaking his head. “I can’t risk it yet. I need more time… I haven’t exactly been resting since I came out.”

That much was true. I couldn’t blame him, but it didn’t lessen my frustration.

“Do you know where to find merflor in The Cove?” I asked him, hoping desperately that he had a better idea of where it was than Aisha had when she’d first ventured down there.

“No,” he said, dashing my hopes. “I would need to search for it.”

I breathed out. Oh, God.

One thing was clear now—I would miss my appointment. I was going to have to try to push it back at least until tomorrow… and hope that the doctor wouldn’t charge some kind of “postponement” fee.